ONEA SPECIAL PLAYER
Kristy alone on a soccer field. The sun barely up above the trees. The turf glistened, damp from yesterday’s rain. It was cold. She went through her warm-up routine.
High knees, side shuffles, Frankensteins, butt kicks, hip flexors, etc. No ball. Not yet. Fitness first, always.
Today was a game day; she wouldn’t overdo it.
Kristy walked off the paces, set out small orange cones in different configurations. Soccer was a game of changing speeds, spurts, sharp cuts, quick accelerations, and periods of rest. This morning’s plan was designed to replicate a game situation. If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you. Kristy heard her mother say those words so many times she now thought of it as her own original idea. She jogged the shape once, then began working in a pattern of slow jogs and sprints. At the end of the first set, Kristy waited, winded, shook out her legs, counted to thirty. She began a second set. And so on. Fitness wasn’t the fun part of soccer. But it helped win games. It made her a better player. And, at thirteen, Kristy was determined to become the best in the state.
Kristy could see her breath form into a misty cloud carrying tiny droplets of water. The air she breathed turned into liquid. Pretty cool, actually: science. Kristy was aware that her father waited in the car. Heater on. Large black coffee in a paper cup. A jelly doughnut on the dashboard. He watched her every move, and she felt his gaze.
Next: ball skills, foot drills.
The moves came as second nature to Kristy. Rollbacks and crossovers, dribbling through cones, left foot, right foot, it didn’t matter. She and the ball were connected as if by a string. It did what she willed it to do. Almost without thought.
This was her happy place. No matter what else was going on in the world, Kristy found peace and pleasure alone on the field. Even during a game, surrounded by teammates, crowded by opponents—pushed, knocked down, high-fived, and cheered—Kristy felt gloriously alone. Bubbled, sheltered, secure.
* * *
By the time she played her first organized practice at U4, anyone could see that Kristy Barrett was a special player. She was simply quicker and more focused than any other four-year-old on the field. Of course, half of them were clinging to their parents’ legs, or slurping on oranges, or plucking dandelions while Kristy raged up and down the grass like a creature possessed. Amazingly, that dynamic continued on through rec ball and travel, even when they let her play on the boys’ team. In seventh grade, Kristy was starting for the varsity high school team. She was special. That was the word, over and over: a special kid.
But wasn’t everybody?
Kristy didn’t much care what people said. She loved to play. That was all, the whole shebang. But after a video of one of her goals went viral—and was included on ESPN’s “Amazing Plays” Sunday feature, along with a thirty-five-second interview—everyone, absolutely everyone, knew. Not long after, a coach from the USA Development Program called, saying, “It wouldn’t surprise me if one day Kristy represents the United States in international play.”
Maybe even a future Olympian.
Altogether not bad for someone who hadn’t, at that time, turned thirteen. But that’s how it works at the highest levels of sports. When you know, you know.
It’s not just poets. Athletes are dreamers, too. Out on a driveway basketball court somewhere, right at this moment, there’s a girl murmuring to herself, “Three-two-one” as she hoists up a shot from the corner, swish, nothing but net.
And the crowd … goes … wild. The dream is everything.
The dream is bigger than any moment.
You have to dream it to believe it, to work for it, to make it come true. Like the poster says: A GOAL IS A DREAM WITH A DEADLINE.
For Kristy, one of those dreams was to score on a scissor kick. The ball bouncing high, bodies crowded around, Kristy’s back to the keeper, suddenly springing into an inversion, parallel to the ground, leaning back and scissoring her legs in a fluttering movement, the top of her right foot squarely on the ball, sending it blindly behind her, Kristy landing on her back with an oomph, knowing from the gasp on the field, the silence and stillness and then the eruption of cheers—the shock and the awe—that the ball had found the back of the net.
She’d done it in practice hundreds of times, getting Tia or any willing body to set her up before it was time to put the balls away. Just for kicks. Fooling around, laughing, seeing what she could make the ball do. Coach Izzy would shake her head, mumble something about trick shots, pretending to be annoyed but admiring just the same.
You can’t not watch someone take a scissor kick.
But games were different. It takes a perfect set of circumstances that come around as often as a blue moon. And then one day, amazingly, it happened. The score was deadlocked, 2–2, time winding down, and out of the chaos in front of the net Kristy buried a scissor kick from about thirty-five feet out to send her team and the crowd into a frenzy.
Even some of the opposing team’s fans stood and cheered. They knew they’d seen something special.
That word, again. Special. The moon was blue.
For Kristy, it was about the kick itself, the coolest thing ever. Kristy was thrilled and there was no wiping the smile off her face. It turned out there was a parent filming at the game. The father of the goalkeeper, actually, and he had quality equipment. That night he posted it on YouTube. He did a great editing job, too. A dad with skills. The viewer could watch the play develop, see the goal, and then up came the words: DID YOU SEE WHAT I JUST SAW? He ran the play again, this time in super slow motion, Kristy rising like an angel, meeting the ball at its summit, and the bullet into the net. The video ends with a tight shot of Kristy’s face, beaming, in her happy place.
That play changed the way people saw her. It opened their eyes to Kristy’s talent. But it wasn’t the play that changed her life.
* * *
The play that changed everything came in the flow of the game. As usual, Kristy was being marked by the opposition’s best defender, in this case a sturdy senior who had already committed to playing D1 at Wake Forest.
Kristy was faster, with better ball skills, but this girl, #22, clutched and bumped and banged and harassed Kristy’s every move. She was more physical, and stronger. It was clean, hard-nosed soccer and Kristy loved the competition.
Up 1–0 late in the first half, Kristy’s team, the Hornets, took possession at the midfield line. Kristy received the ball with her back to the goal. She was the hub by design, the center: the offense ran through her playmaking ability. Kristy deadened the pass and deftly flicked the ball with the heel of her left foot to Tia, the outside striker, who was streaking down the right sideline. Kristy pivoted left and sprinted to the net, creating space between her and her mark, #22.
Kristy and Tia had played together for the past two years. They were teammates on an elite travel team, though Tia was three years older. They knew each other’s moves and methods. Even as Kristy raced to open space, Tia had already sent the ball on its way to meet her. The timing was perfect. But the crossing pass was errant. It was slightly too far ahead, bounced too high. A defender rushed to the ball, the goalie charged aggressively forward. But Kristy saw the opening, the narrow path to the back of the net. She made a reckless lunge, launching her body like a missile headfirst toward the ball.
She thinks of that moment—the decision to go for it—and has remembered it every day. Even through the brain fog. Which is strange because she does not recall the collision that occurred immediately after. That specific “moment” cannot be retrieved from her mind. It’s been erased, like a file deleted.
The game is so instinctive, so above and beyond and outside conscious thought. There’s a ball in the air like a small sun over the water and Kristy is entranced, bedeviled. She dives …
Copyright © 2024 by James Preller
